We went to our Ds undergrad graduation Saturday. We were there for about 4 hours. It felt like a plane trip. (stadium seats were tiny) I am so proud of my D but relieved her Grad school does departmental graduations for Masters degree recipients
I wish they would just skip the commencement address altogether -the student who briefly spoke was much more charming.
Also right at the end -when we were so tired, the president of the alumni association got up and gave a ten minute talk on being an active alumni. I was a little worried someone would rush the stage and knock her down.
Anyway -My point is it was LONG and tedious. I am really glad I got the pictures but if my D had said she wanted to skip it I would have been all for it.
Having been through more graduations than I can count with 5 Ds, my response would be…yay for not having to go to another one! It should be the graduate’s decision, in my opinion, how they want to celebrate. And I say that as a parent who paid for every cent of every degree they have. What I ‘got out of it’ was 5 Ds who received an excellent education and who are all successful in their chosen careers. A couple of my Ds made the decision not to attend, and our celebrations included family and friends, which is what they wanted.
Thankful.
I know the graduations Oldfort attended. I graduated from the same university a long time ago. You have to walk with the other people from your school, and all of my friends were in other schools within the university. It was a long, lonely day for me – and I knew ahead of time that it would be.
But it meant something to my family because I was the first family member to graduate from college. I felt obligated to participate. And I never told my family that it was a miserable experience for me.
In general, I think that the decision to participate in graduation or skip it should be up to the graduate. But sometimes, as with me, the family’s feelings should take precedence.
I skipped all of mine, with never a protest from my parents. My son missed HS graduation and giving a speech as he skipped senior year. So, it mattered to me about college graduation.
Being at a small school, everyone came on stage. There are 7 Houses, and each one had some special insignia or ritual. There was a luncheon, then a dinner. I sat with the families of my son’s roommates. We also went to the Presidents house for a cocktail party. THe President spoke about my son serving on a committee with him for a year.
Another highlight was meeting two CC families. Oaklandmom was one. The other was there with her whole family, because her son won the outstanding student award. Pretty nice.
@happy1 - My H was a photography minor and is constantly working on online photo albums. My only caveat is that he is not allowed to put any photos of me online. The only one I know of is from middle son’s Eagle Scout court of honor which I agreed to because MIL wanted it. My son would have been just as happy as I would have been to be without photos. I don’t think he has any pictures on his phone other than one of the sinkhole which recently formed in our backyard.
My son did not attend his graduation ceremony. He had been off campus for a year completing his co-op, and did not want to go back for it. I doubt he would have wanted to attend even if he was on campus, those types of things do not interest him. I was only mildly disappointed for a short time, but I do believe that decision should be up to the student.
We attended all parts of older daughter’s graduation - smaller college ceremony, large school ceremony, Phi Beta Kappa ceremony, department receptions, and will be doing the same for younger daughter this weekend! Yay, all done!
I don’t think its a big deal to not attend. I didn’t attend any (3) of my “college” graduation ceremonies and have never regretted it. There are some celebrations I wanted my D to attend, the ones that were more personal…GS Gold Award at the statehouse, recognition ceremony for her IB project, those things. Attending a mass celebration with 1000 other students who barely know each other wouldn’t matter to me at all, I’d actually be relieved if she chose not to go lol.
Interesting to hear the different perspectives shared on this site. Some people described feeling proud as they graduated. I did not feel proud at either my high school or college graduation ceremonies. I might have been proud had I been valedictorian and delivered a speech; a speaker or performer can be proud of their work. I was not valedictorian, nor did I perform or do anything except walk across a stage and shake a hand, after a long time of sitting. Graduation did not feel like an accomplishment, because luckily I was never at risk of not graduating. So, I felt bored and hot and tired of listening the whole time, for both events (high school and college). And, in high school, I felt sorry for the people who got heckled by their peers or got less applause from their peers than the person who walked before them.
So, I guess it depends on how your child feels about it… and on how important it is to you and the rest of your family.
How would I react? By getting on the floor and kissing her feet. I envy you.
I derive no meaning from graduation ceremonies. After my high school ceremony I questioned what all the hoopla was about. I walked for my BS, but not my MS. Never made a difference in the success I achieved in my career.
I sat through three excruciatingly long and boring ceremonies for first daughter’s BS. Fortunately, the school she earned her MS from didn’t even have a ceremony. (Denmark)
I sat through one very well done, and two excruciatingly painful ceremonies for out second daughter’s BS. I’m crossing my fingers she will skip the MS ceremonies since she hated the boring BS ceremonies.
D1 went to hers, and our family (including grandparents) all flew out to see her walk.
D2 did not want to go to hers. DH was disappointed, but he didn’t walk either, so he couldn’t really make a big deal of it.
Seeing all her friends out with their families that weekend made D2 kind of sad that she hadn’t done it. She told me that later.
No. In fact, in my view, that doesn’t matter much at all unless there is some strong reason not to attend. What matters is whether it’s important to other family members, especially if they provided various kinds of support along the way. It’s an opportunity to behave as a mature adult, and to put others’ feelings ahead of your own.
If nobody in the family cares, OK. But I get steamed every year when I read about a kid who wants to deny grandma the thrill of seeing him or her graduate because the ceremony is “boring.”
I was happy that when he got his masters S didn’t want to go to the huge Columbia graduation ceremony in the morning, because it would have been a logistical nightmare as something like 30K people descended on the campus. I was also happy that he DID want to go to the J school graduation in the afternoon. Much more meaningful, and followed by a lovely reception. Interesting speaker–editor of The Guardian–got to meet profs and friends, etc.
Not only that, but it took place in an air-conditioned facility! His college graduation was outdoors, and the day was hot with a blazing sun. Wouldn’t have missed it, though. There was also a departmental reception a day or two earlier, and that was a nice opportunity to meet profs. And the hors d’oeuvres were delicious. 
I didn’t want to go to my college graduation, as I still had two courses to take due to taking a semester off, but when I found out that I could in fact march, I felt obligated to inform my parents, and I did so for their sake. I’m with Hunt on that one.
I think you have a good point, @Hunt, in the situation where the student wants to skip graduation but family members want to attend.
But what about the opposite situation? What if the family does not want the student to attend graduation but the student wants to be there?
When my daughter finished her MBA, I was hoping she would decide not to attend her graduation. If she had attended, her new fiance and I would have been stuck together for the greater part of a day without her, and we didn’t know each other well enough to be comfortable with that. But it wouldn’t have been my place to suggest that she skip graduation, in my opinion. If she wanted to be there, it was her right to be there – or at least, that’s how I saw it.
As it turned out, her MBA graduation conflicted with her 5-year college reunion, and she decided to go to the reunion instead (with her fiance, who is a graduate of the same college). So it all worked out.
Still, I don’t think family members have the right to say “Don’t go to your graduation.”
I have no criticism if nobody wants to go. But as Marian points out, I think, part of being in a family is being willing to make some sacrifices for the sake of other family members. If it’s just sitting through a boring ceremony, that’s relatively mild compared to some of the things you may encounter later in life.
Hopefully we will go to one here at UF, God willing. We didn’t do ceremonies for homeschool graduations, though we could have.
I selfishly want the pics.
DH went to S1’s graduation. I was still in the hospital and S2 was designated to be here with me in case I had problems. The big ceremony was hot and long, the departmental more intimate and S was recognized. DH and S1 were glad to have attended.
DHh and I went to S2’s graduation. SImilar set-up re: class and department ceremonies, but none of us were very happy with how college worked out for him, so that was a shadow over it.
DH didn’t go to his UG graduation, but we both went to his grad school ceremony. We had been married over five years by that point and I had supported us through it, so it was a real celebration for us. No parents. They had nothing to do with getting him to or through UG or grad.
I didn’t go to mine, either.
I did not walk at my own college graduation. I graduated a semester late and wasn’t interested in going back in the spring and walking with a class I didn’t feel like I belonged to. No regrets.
We all went to my oldest D’s graduation from community college because she was going to speak and it seemed like a big, happy moment for all of us.
This weekend she is graduating with her BA, and we will go down for the big stadium ceremony as well as the smaller departmental one in the afternoon.
We are not what I would call celebratory people, but we want to go because she’d like us to be there. If she wanted to skip, I’d be surprised, but not disappointed.
MaryGJ, it sounds like your kid knows what she wants. It’s not meaningful to her, and she doesn’t want to waste her and everyone else’s time. Good for her.
I think (?) I went to my college graduation, but it was so boring I don’t even remember it, and I know my parents didn’t go. The graduation was a big nothing, I just wanted to get on with my life, and knew basically nobody at my school, I just went to take the classes.
Much bigger deal for my kids, but they wanted to go and didn’t even suggest otherwise. They were very involved, had many friends and it was important to them.
I only went to my small department ceremony. Skipped my university one and my big departments (I graduated with 2 degrees). If I was only in the big department, I would have skipped.
Celebrating with family in an intimate setting instead of with thousands of others is much more appealing to many students and their families.